


Dead ends

by DevilForging



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game), The Walking Dead (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, bittersweetness, lightly NSFW, observation deck, there was time for kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 20:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6300052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevilForging/pseuds/DevilForging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That's twice he owes her now, she thinks, shirking his gaze without managing to look sheepish about it. She refuses to look sheepish about it, refuses to let the gratitude in his eyes shame her for keeping a tally. He's got the kind of face that's made for guilt-tripping, too soft, revealing too much. The bruises and crusting blood don't help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead ends

"Hey," He calls out on his way up, because the last thing she needs is a jump scare and the last thing he needs is a gun turned on him in a knee-jerk reflex.

She had seen him coming a long ways off, thanks to the vantage point from the deck, and has stopped pacing, her arms crossed. Eyes distant, slanted aside.

He stops a few feet from her. "...You okay?"

It's just another courtesy because no one's okay anymore and they haven't been for a long time. But, if anything, it's a question she feels she should be asking him. The simple effort of climbing the stairs toting his rifle has left him breathless, a sheen of sweat on his brow and upper lip, and he manages to look paler than when she first met him in the pen with his blood slicking Carver's knuckles. She frowns at him.

"Yeah." A beat. She motions to the gift shop behind her with a nudge of her chin. A more comfortable talking point. "Got the gift shop open."

It's a small box of a room with nothing remotely useful in it. But shelter is shelter and the deck is the most promising find since the cabin. "Good... great." There's relief in his voice, buried under a thick layer of exhaustion. "That'll work."

That's twice he owes her now, she thinks, shirking his gaze without managing to look sheepish about it. She refuses to look sheepish about it, refuses to let the gratitude in his eyes shame her for keeping a tally. He's got the kind of face that's made for guilt-tripping, too soft, revealing too much. The bruises and crusting blood don't help.

She shifts her weight and he does too and suddenly neither of them know what else to say to each other. Then Luke turns away, her gaze following as he makes his way past once proud cannons left to rust - more relics of a bygone era - and takes in the view from the railing. Keeping watch. She reads pain in the stiffened lines of his neck and shoulders and knows he's doing everything to keep from slouching and looking as beaten down as he is, even though no one else is here to notice. Everyone has their masks.

She comes up from behind him, slowly, stopping short of standing at his side. And she looks out, too, at the river cutting a swathe through the trees and the steepled roof of some church in the distance rising from their dark, twisting shapes. Even the world looks as worn and grey as they feel.

"Looks like the coast's clear," He says. "We can start roundin' up the rest of us." It's quiet now but neither of them can buy into the calmness of it as the both of them wait, breaths held, for the other shoe to drop. Maybe it wouldn't today, or even tomorrow. But it will. It always does.

For a long time she debates whether she should tell him about the kid with the glasses and the limp. Her gut's still in knots over it, her pulse sharp in her throat. No one talks, but she can hear Luke thinking, worrying. About winter edging in, about Rebecca and the baby and the road ahead. Thinking about the road behind them, too, and the people who hadn't made it.

It shouldn't bother her. Guilt's useless and impractical, a black hole that eats people alive, and it's not her business to try and pull anyone out of it, much less someone so stubbornly - so stupidly - determined to suffer. It takes everything just to keep herself from being swallowed up too -- and between Sarah screaming while hundreds of teeth and nails tore her open and Clem just being there, existing, it's a losing battle.

"Listen..." She begins, as restless and unsure-sounding as she had been in the trailer with walkers smearing their rotting faces against every inch of window.

She could go, she thinks, and no one would know until she had put at least a mile between them. She'd have to before this group tries to bring her into the fold - before Luke can. And before it kills her.

"Luke?"

Her voice is low and worn around the edges, but soft with something approaching gentleness. He's heard Jane deadpan, heard her matter-of-factly, no-nonsense tones. But he's never heard this Jane before and he looks back at her, unsure. "Yeah?

She's not used to this either. 

Not used to feeling so unprepared, not having planned ahead enough to do more than stare back at him, forced to face his look of muted concern for longer than she's comfortable with. Jaw stiffening, she reaches for him, gripping fistfuls of his sweater like she's ready to shove him out of her way. But she cops out. Presses her lips to his, starved and angry, and she doesn't want to care that she's hurting him in some way when he moans into her. It takes feeling his hand on her arm to remind her and she pulls away. The spell breaks over them like a wave. They search each others' faces, breathing, heads swimming.

“…Jane?” He tries.

They're warm and _alive_ and desperate for something more to life than just scraping by, than losing more of themselves one piece at a time, and _fuck it_ \- she doesn't have to justify wanting what she does. She doesn't have to shuffle her feet waiting for either of them to figure things out. There's never any time. But maybe, here and now, that's a blessing in disguise.

She mouths his jaw, his neck, tasting the salt of sweat on his skin and pressing a hand lightly into his chest not to reassure him but to keep him there. He tenses, his head spinning too fast to tell the difference.

"Relax." She says into his skin, and it's such a matter-of-fact tone, so cool, it's almost like nothing's changed at all. "They'll be fine. They can handle themselves for a few minutes."

Maybe it's selfish, sucking up all his attention just like his guilt did and does and always would. But maybe, for once, she'll know what it's like for someone to be selfish for _her_. She backs him up into the room beside the gift shop. He stumbles into the wall, making a noise in his throat when she leans into him and slides her leg between his. She's not surprised that he's hard already. He can't help it.

They paw at each other uselessly, panting rough between kisses. All teeth and tongue and giddy animal-hunger and, God, he wants this to his bones. _Needs_ it so bad it hurts and he closes his eyes, something crumbling inside him as he gives into this force that's bigger than him, that's bigger than the both of them. 

When she pulls back to unzip her jacket he sees his eyes are nearly black, their colour blotted out by his lust-blown pupils. It's unexpectedly gratifying, the feeling spreading through her chest, filling her. She finds herself helping to unshoulder his rifle when he claws at the straps and then eases him onto the deck floor, his body humming like live wires through his sweater. His face wrenches up - and when he clutches his ribs she awkwardly presses her hand to his like they're both fumbling to keep gushing blood inside him. This is a bad idea but neither of them are scrambling to abandon ship like anyone with any sense left in them should; they're desperate to stay on. 

"...You okay?" She asks after he's lain down, brow knitted as she leans over him to loosen his belt and using that as a pretense to avoid his gaze for as long as she can. But his silence forces her to look up after a while. The way his sides heave remind her of a beached animal. He might need this more than she does for the endorphin rush, if nothing else. "Don't pass out on me."

It's a joke but neither of them are smiling.

"...You don'... have to."

She just stares at him a moment, straightening. Her hands go still. "I know," She answers too quickly, too clipped. Then, sardonically, out the side of her mouth: "Is this your way of telling me you're backing out?"

"I jus' don' want this to... to be somethin' you regret." His eyes are too old for his face and she knew she shouldn't have looked. "God knows... we all have enough a' those already."

The thought of Rebecca's baby hangs over their heads.

She snorts mirthlessly, breaking the silence when it stretches uncomfortably long. 'Way ahead of you ,' she wants to say. But barely bites it back. "Look, I know what I'm doing, okay?" His belt jangles loose when she gives it a rough tug (and she hears him make a choked sound in his throat.) "So just relax."

There's something methodical, coolly efficient about the way she pops the button of his jeans and drags his zipper down, palming him through his briefs. They're spotted damp, tacky with precome. It's like they've done this before - and he can't help but wonder, as she lies down and sidles up against him, bracing his injured side, what she's getting out of all this. He can barely move, moaning uselessly when she snakes her fingers under the waistband and takes him with a sure hand, slick and aching, the shock of skin on skin burning into his brain. But maybe this is exactly what she needs. Maybe his helplessness, his harmlessness, is almost enough.

He slides his hand down her shirt and she allows it, calloused fingers skimming the sharp, bird-like jut of her shoulderblade and teasing the clasp of her bra as they sweep over her back. Her nerves tingle raw. It's a world of touch she's all but forgotten after all the bruises and broken bones and she almost nuzzles his shoulder while lying there, listening to the raspy edge to his breathing as she works him with long, twisting strokes. Bringing him to the edge too soon. His thoughts scatter, swept up in the dizzying moment when the pain and pleasure peak and he shudders against her with a stuttering moan - and into her hand - starbursts of light bursting behind his eyes. And then, panting, he freefalls back into his body. She's a little sorry to see him pressing his hand to his ribs again, when he does. She just hopes it was worth it.

The world slowly fades back into awareness for him - and by the time he comes out of his daze he notices she's already sitting up, wiping her hand dry on her pants. He blinks his gaze clearer.

"...I'm sorry." He manages between hungry, knifing breaths, when he can get a word in edgewise. His cock is limp against his thigh and he has the sense to stuff himself back into his briefs and zip up after a moment.

There's a wry twist to her lips. "For what?" 

He doesn't answer. She can only wonder what place he's crawled back into in his mind.

"For the record?" Amusement creeps into her voice. "You're pretty average."

She's misunderstood him - well, mostly - but he's curious enough not to interrupt her. 

"Any big shot claiming he can last longer than ten minutes these days is just talking out of his ass."

"Well _that's_ a weight off." He huffs a soft, herky-jerky attempt at a laugh and it hurts so bad it brings tears to the corners of his eyes. It's not the first bad idea he's had today - but she decides she can't blame him for trying. Everyone copes in their own fucked up ways.

She offers him her hand when he struggles to push up onto his elbows. "C'mon." She says, because it isn't right leaving him on the floor, leveled with pain, just like after Carver had beat him bloody. He clasps his hand around hers, groaning through his teeth as she helps sit him up against the wall. His head lolls back. Sweat gleams in the hollow of his throat.

"Thanks."

She all but scoffs. He's too much for her, this fucking boy scout, and he has no right to be anything resembling charming. He's just another asshole, she decides. Just not the sort she's used to dealing with.

"Don't get used to it." She says, teasing, but there's an honesty to it that makes her gut churn. Maybe Luke knows she's already gearing up to take off and abandon him and the part of herself that could get used to this - but if he does he doesn't show it. Or she just can't tell, because there's always been this bone-deep, tired sadness to his eyes, the expectation to lose the next good thing in his life.

"Which part?" He asks, looking over at her.

He cracks a lopsided grin and they both know neither of them are more okay than they were before. But she snorts, holding his gaze. And, for a moment - maybe in a roundabout way of saying sorry for what she'd have to do, but not sorry enough to choke up the words for him to hear - she plays along and lets him talk, pretending that this can work. That it'll get better from here.


End file.
